This invention relates to a song accompaniment system comprising a singing support apparatus, or a so-called karaoke machine, and an instrumental accompaniment apparatus which makes use of one or more simulative instruments.
Various kinds of music game machines have conventionally been proposed and many of them have actually been used. In one known example of a music game machine, a set of note marks is scrolled toward a timing line on a monitor screen and, if an operating part of a simulative instrument is operated when a note mark matches the timing line, a musical sound corresponding to the note mark that has matched is output. In another known example of a music game machine, a plurality of buttons simulating those of multiple keyboards are provided just below a monitor and a set of note marks is scrolled to indicate the timing of playing each keyboard so that proper musical sounds can be output.
On the other hand, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-510849 proposes an imaginary musical instrument, in which a pulse waveform of sound of a simulated guitar resembling an electrocardiogram is displayed in a stationary fashion on a monitor screen and a timing line is moved at a constant speed in the direction of a time axis to thereby indicate operating timing of the simulated guitar. According to the Patent Publication, it is possible to reproduce a musical performance with this simulated guitar using performance information conforming to the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) format.
The aforementioned conventional music game machines indicate operating timing as guidance for performing a readily available music and output musical sounds when one of the simulative instruments is operated with proper timing according to the indicated guidance. Accordingly, a player is just allowed to enjoy playing the simulative instruments. The conventional music game machines lack the ability to offer versatile ways of enjoying music, and would give only limited fun to the player. Another problem of the conventional music game machines is that it is necessary to prepare or program many pieces of music to be played and preparation of these music pieces is highly labor-intensive and time-consuming.